Aurora's Breeding

Aurora was bred today to Wira Cocha. We decided to hold her back last fall and switch her to a spring breeding schedule. She has a problem with the summer heat and her last three births have come about 18 days early so, we wanted to see if her gestation time would change on this schedule. It might be that her body is just dialed into about 330-335 days instead of the 350 or so that most of our other alpacas give birth on. So we'll see what happens next year. I have put a target date of 5/26/2010 for next years cria which would be around Memorial Day.



It was a fairly long breeding session at 42 minutes. The two of them hooked up right away and I didn't have to help out in any way. I just had to peek to make sure he found the right spot but I didn't have to lend a helping hand so to speak!

I'm still on cria watch as Sammie's due date is Friday and Marilyn is due the following day. If I were a betting man I would say Sammie's cria will come on Friday and Marilyn's I will predict next Wednesday.

Here is a picture from today around 5:00 pm while the girls went out to graze in the shade. All of our crias have been born in the morning but I wasn't taking any chances and have been keeping a close eye on Sammie. She's due to pop at any time. The dogs are doing what they do by keeping a sharp eye out for any predators.